Yesterday, Progress, announced the release of NativeScript 5.0. With this release, NativeScript framework hits a major milestone of 3.5 million downloads in under three years, since its original launch in 2015. NativeScript 5.0 has capabilities including code sharing, hot module replacement, preview enhancements and more.

Brad Green, Engineering Director, Angular Framework, Google Inc, said “In 2016, NativeScript 2.0 gave developers the ability to use Angular and NativeScript to create native mobile apps, but we wanted to take it a step further by enabling them to keep their code in one place and share business logic between web, iOS, and Android. We’ve worked closely with the NativeScript team resulting in the NativeScript-Schematics that integrates with the Angular CLI, making the user experience for developing both web and mobile within a single project completely seamless.”

What’s New in NativeScript 5.0

NativeScript-Schematics

This is a joint initiative with Angular to create a schematic that enables the building of both web and mobile apps from a single project.

New ‘Instant Start’ CLI workflow

Using this new CLI workflow users can start working on native apps within minutes, with no up-front requirements to install iOS and Android SDKs.

Hot Module Replacement

This includes instantaneous, stateful application updates, avoiding full page reload, significantly accelerating the app development and debugging experience.

Streamlined “Getting Started” experience

Android enhancements

Some Android enhancements in this version include increased animation scenarios and more material design capabilities.

Vector type support for iOS

The Vector type support enables a broader set of augmented reality scenarios for iOS.

Todd Anglin, Vice President, Product and Developer Relations, Progress, said, “Today’s release of NativeScript 5.0 brings an unprecedented level of ease, flexibility and productivity to the mobile app dev experience. Not only have we improved the ability to kickstart a project for new NativeScript users, but we’ve also expanded key attributes important to developers more versed in our offerings.”